Eric Prokopi, 39, pleaded guilty last year to three counts related to the smuggling of dinosaur fossils into the U.S. His biggest find was a 2-ton Tyrannosaurus bataar, about 8 feet tall, 24 feet long and 70 million years old. Prokopi enlisted a New York auction house to put the dinosaur up for bid, but the quirky offering caught the eye of paleontologists, including an advisor to the Mongolian president.

The fossils had a grayish-sand hue, which indicated they could have come only from Mongolia. Officials there worked with U.S. authorities to halt the million-dollar sale and prosecute Prokopi. Mongolian authorities even uncovered photos of Prokopi working at an excavation site in the Gobi Desert.

But prosecutors eventually requested leniency for him because he shared details about the fossil smuggling world that helped them recover several other items, according to court files. Every fossil-smuggling investigation since Prokopi's arrest has been made possible in part by information he provided, prosecutors said.

Prokopi had faced up to 17 years in prison, but a federal judge on Tuesday sentenced him to three months in prison and about a year of probation.

Still, Prokopi had sought to avoid prison altogether because his reputation as a professional fossils dealer already has been tarnished, according to his attorney. He must turn himself in by September.

Prosecutors said Mongolia plans to open a natural history museum, beginning with the fossils recovered from the Prokopi case.

A bicyclist riding through a Waukesha park saw the Wisconsin middle-school girl on the side of the road bleeding profusely and begging for aid, the victim in what has become known as the Slender Man stabbing case.

Nurse Nina Pham — once the upbeat face of the Dallas hospital that confronted the country’s first Ebola case — sued the hospital’s parent company Monday, alleging that it had failed to protect her before and after she was diagnosed with the deadly disease last fall.

With no political solution in sight, Congress faces another deadline to fund the Homeland Security Department by midnight Friday – a do-over of last week's bitter battle as Republicans try to stop President Obama's immigration plans.

Hours after Tamir Rice’s family angrily criticized Cleveland for contending in legal documents that the 12-year-old was to blame for his death at the hands of a police officer, the mayor apologized Monday and said the city would amend its court filing.